


Simple

by Hope



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-21
Updated: 2005-09-21
Packaged: 2017-10-03 10:39:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/pseuds/Hope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>http://hopeful-fiction.livejournal.com/34654.html</p></blockquote>





	Simple

Kaylee knows that if it weren't for her, Simon and River wouldn't be aboard Serenity. The thought occupies her for hours sometimes, winds itself up in her head as she's working in the engine room, the focus of her hands getting wrapped up in the focus of her mind until the Cap'n startles her from the doorway and she realises half the day's gone.

The recollection, in her mind, always starts in the same way. Always plays out like Serenity's take-off sequence, a well-worn series of moments that each serve their function to get them in the air.

The brittle plastic of the parasol's stem as she twirls it between her palms. Persephone's dusty air shoving sluggishly against her bare shins. The cosmetics on her face making her eyelids, her lips feel sticky, stifled, completely unlike the engine grease, but not unwelcome. Simon, then, his suit not-quite black with its fine covering of dust, though she imagines it would be richer, darker, were he inside; somewhere cooler, quieter, where she could hear his breathing. His back straight, stiff, head tilted back a little, nothing like the Captain with his easy, poised stance, but Simon don't look intimidating this first time. Just a little lost.

He asks her where they're headed, and she tells him, and some more about Serenity besides. He turns his head to look into the quiet emptiness of the cargo hull, and from side-on she can see his gaze still, fixed, behind the red lenses of the glasses; eyelashes only moving to blink. "_I have some cargo as well,_" he says, and she knows he's been sold. "_I hope it won't be a problem._"

Sometimes she plays it out differently. Wonders what would have happened if their schedule had been out, and they'd arrived a day later, or earlier. What would have happened if he'd found a ship before he got to Serenity. If Boros hadn't been his planned destination. She imagines what it would be like if the only time she ever saw him was his face on a wanted notice on the cortex; or a news wave reporting his arrest. She figures that most crews aren't as generous as theirs. Most ships aren't as lucky, most Captains not as canny as Mal. She figures that if she hadn't been out there, twirling her parasol and waiting for him, things would have been powerful different.

*

Kaylee's always known what she wanted, and considers herself lucky as it's always been the same thing. Pleasures that some might call simple, but she thinks are just as complicated as anyone's path to enjoyment. The satisfaction of her mind and her hands taking things apart and knowing where all the pieces go. The bone-deep joy of fitting those pieces to a part of herself and knowing where and when they're meant to be, be it food, or play, or sex. Family. Pieces of her life came together when the Captain offered her a job on Serenity, as if the life she'd had working with her Daddy, enjoying the fruits of her city, had been refined, enhanced on board the ship.

She figures she don't really have to think about much, as long as she's happy then things are going well. If she ain't happy, then she's just got to do whatever it takes to get back there again. Her body knows this, and her heart knows this. She's learned to trust her instincts, they always know what's best for her.

She figures Simon's instincts got messed up somewhere along the way, probably from all the training at being proper he got when he was a kid. Even River deals better in the black than he does, like all her manners got stripped away with whatever the Alliance had been doing to her brain. She's not like Jayne, though, as if she never had proper learning. It's like she knows how she's meant to behave, but she just don't care. She's beyond it. Sometimes Kaylee wonders what it would be like if Simon had been stripped away like that. Sometimes she thinks maybe that would be better.

*

It was the pieces coming together for her again, really. Like Bester easing her to the floor, and pumping away with such disappointing mediocrity that she had to turn her head to keep interested, saw the reg couple, gummed up and drab, her fingers already itching to get at it. The Cap'n not taking jobs regular enough or staying long enough for her to enjoy all the fruits of life, as it were, and then the doc walking right into it, standing there in front of the cargo bay, not moving much, not talking, like someone'd placed him just _there_ for her to see and take the 'verse up on its offer. Sometimes she plays it out differently, and wonders what would have happened if she'd had to convince him to come aboard. Convince the piece to fit in the jigsaw, maybe in the engine room with grease on his white shirt, his white skin. Maybe in the shadow of Serenity in the landing bay, dirt covering the back of his tailored jacket and ruining it.

But he's stubborn, like a broken engine part. Not broke like River; she's a part with too much grease or too little oil. Simon's like the catalyser, made for the engine but just not slotting in there right. Like his old life damaged him, wore down the parts that fit into the other parts, made it all run like clockwork. Mal told her she was the best damn mechanic he'd ever flown with, she _knows_ engines, she knows how to make them work. She's just gotta do whatever it takes til things are all runnin smoothly. Like she knows they're meant to be.

**Author's Note:**

> http://hopeful-fiction.livejournal.com/34654.html


End file.
